SPERMATORRHEA

OR,

INVOLUNTARY SEMINAL DISCHARGES.

HAVING now treated of some of the chief causes of this disease, I shall proceed to give a fuller description of its nature and symptoms. Until the researches of M. Lallemand, although recognised, it was very little understood, having been involved previously in the mystery and ignorance which brooded over all sexual subjects, and which even to a greater degree obscured the diseases of the female genital organs, as we shall see hereafter. It was whilst observing diseases of the brain, that M. Lallemand was first led to suspect, and examine into, the effects of seminal disease on the male system. Having once got hold of the clue, he followed it with the most admirable steadiness and sagacity, and after twenty years labour, he laid bare to the world, in his work on "involuntary seminal discharges," published only some few years ago, a host of the most important and original facts, exemplified by the histories of cases written by the patients themselves; which throws over the whole work the sad and living interest that subjective descriptions alone can give. His discoveries are in their originality and importance comparable with those of any other medical benefactor of his race, but are yet comparatively little known, or at least openly admitted and approved by our profession in this country; for this chief reason, that, shaking as they do the very foundations of the theoretical morality between the sexes, they are opposed by a host of prejudices.

Unhappy is it at all times when we have to do with supernatural prejudices, the most difficult of all to overcome; trebly unhappy is it, when they stand between a miserable sufferer and his rescue from what is almost worse than death. Had they, who would rigorously enforce abstinence or chastity, on him who is wasting from the surface of the earth from its effects, but a glimpse into his real hell of misery, they would pause, and at any rate wipe their hands of so dangerous and responsible a matter, as interfering with those who can and will rescue him. Men will not nowa-days submit to be made auto-da-fes of, for the edification of their zealous neighbours.

The venereal and genital complaints would be the most painful of all, were it only for the painful feelings which they almost invariably rouse 'n the breasts of those, who have suffered much from them. While in

other complaints, the public sympathy is at least with the sufferers, and all efforts that love and skill can devise, are made for their relief, in these diseases, and these only, quite the reverse is the case. So far from pitying and relieving, the public do all they can, however little they know what they are doing, and how sinful their feelings are, further to degrade and desolate the unfortunate sufferer, and throw every obstacle in the way of his recovery. Therefore, there is no class of diseases, which is characterised by such irritability and bitterness of feeling in the abused victims, none which so spoils the moral character, however noble it may be. Oh! that we may yet live to see these most ruinous and unhappy feelings disappear from the human breast; that the sexual diseases, perhaps the most important and widely spread of all at present, may be, like the rest, included in the true brotherly love and sympathy of all of us; and that every thing may be done to promote their cure, and to banish then as far as possible from the world, which they have too long desolated!

By spermatorrhoea, or involuntary seminal discharges, is meant the loss of seminal fluid without the will of the patient, which, when it occurs frequently, constitutes, as we have seen, a most dreadful disease. These discharges may be divided into the nocturnal and the diurnal. In the nocturnal ones, the patient has generally a dream on some venereal subject, an erection of the penis, and a discharge of semen, and wakes just as the discharge is taking place. This form of the nocturnal emissions, which may occur in the strongest men, and is generally attendant on the period of puberty, is the least injurious, as it contains all the elements of the venereal orgasm except that, Ixion-like. the dreamer embraces a cloud.

Many persons, who live a life of abstinence, have such emissions, at shorter or longer intervals, for years, and yet remain tolerably strong and vigorous. However, they are always suspicious, and prove, even when they do not reduce the strength, that the genital organs are ready for, and in want of due exercise, just like the feeling of muscular irritability which we have when we take no exercise. All such warnings, if long disregarded, are apt to be followed by enfeeblement and disease. When this does take place, the emissions increase in frequency, and the patient begins to feel his health declining. The emissions may now take place nightly, or even three or four times in the night in bad cases, and this soon brings on a state of great exhaustion. The proportion in which nocturnal emissions weaken the strength in any one, must determine how far they constitute a disease. Sometimes, when few, they are of little consequence; at other times, if frequent, they bring on the greatest prostration and melancholy. As the disease progresses, discharges take place without a venereal dream or erection. The patient wakes suddenly from a stupor, just as the discharge is pouring out, which he will try in vain to check; or, perhaps, he does not wake till after it is over, and then, as a lethargic consciousness, which of itself tells him what has taken place, slowly awakens, he puts down his hand and sickens with despair, as he perceives the fatal drain, and thinks on the gloomy morrow, which will follow

As the disease advances still further, the organs lose their natura powers of pouring forth a large quantity involuntarily at one time. Th

semen becomes thinner, and deteriorated in quality; and as fast as it forms, it drains off, whenever any exertion is made; as at stool, in going into a cold bath, in making water, or even in thinking on a venereal subject. These constitute the diurnal involuntary discharges, which are always a sign of a worse form of the disease, and greater weakness.

When the patient goes to stool, he will observe, that after he has expelled the contents of his bladder, a few drops of a thick viscid whitishlooking fluid, like the mucus from the nose, follows, and if he has to use much exertion, as for instance, to overcome constipation, more of this will appear, with a sensation of slight venereal titillation; and, at last, though rarely, even an erection and a full discharge may be produced; the semen may also, though more rarely, appear before the stream of urine. If this fluid be examined, under a microscope, it will be found to be semen from the presence of the spermotazooids. In the urine, if semen be discharged also in making water, it floats about like a cloud, and can be recognised by the same test. This mode of recognising the disease by the microscope is a very valuable one, and reveals frequently the cause of the most obscure symptoms. It is to be observed, that a cloud is very often present in urine, which contains no semen.

When spermatorrhoea has existed long, the semen sometimes becomes much deteriorated in quality, so as to be incapable of serving for impregnation. The spermatozooids in these cases are sometimes scarcely to be recognised, and do not appear to have their normal developement.

As soon as the noccurnal emissions have become so numerous, that the patient's constitution cannot support the drain, the powers begin to break down. The one prevailing feature in all the symptoms caused by seminal losses, is weakening of the nervous system. There is perhaps, no chronic disease, not having its seat in the brain itself, in which this part becomes so enfeebled. The signs of nervous exhaustion are at first slight a feeling of weakness on rising in the morning, especially after a nocturnal emission, and still more after two or three in the same night; a sort of mistiness or haze in the thoughts, and dimness in the sight, while the eye loses its lustre; enfeeblement of muscular power, with irritability of its fibre, often shown by palpitation of the heart, (so constant an atcendant on nervous exhaustion,) which has caused in many cases, groundless fear of organic heart disease; indigestion and constipation, from insufficient nervous tone; and wasting of the frame more or less. In different patients, different parts are chiefly affected. Thus one (who has probably not studied hard, and in whom the brain is not the vulnerable part,) will not complain so much of his head, but rather of indigestion, emaciation, and muscular debility; whilst others retain the appearance of blooming health, whose mind may be greatly enfeebled.

However on the whole, there is a great and striking similarity in the symptoms of all affected with the disease; which will enable him who has well studied, readily to recognise it, and will afford to every intelligent patient, in the interesting histories contained in M. Lallemand's work, a transcript of his own sensations.

As the disease advances, all the symptoms become aggravated. The patient gradually and slowly sinks into the greatest emaciation and weakness, if unrelieved; he becomes impotent, i. e. cannot have sexual connection, for the weakened brain can no longer call up an erection in the no less weakened genital organs; or if sexual connection be effected, the emission comes almost immediately, and with little enjoyment. Along with this, there is often at one time a disgust at, and at another a morbid bashfulness in the presence of women. The mind may be variously affected, according to his disposition; he may become savage and repulsive, so as to avoid the society of his friends, and feel hatred and disgust at mankind. or gloomily despairing, hypochondriacal, and timid; the intellect gradually loses its clearness and elasticity, and ceases to obey the powerless will, which may seek in vain to bend it to attentive thought, and this may proceed even to insanity or idiocy, in the worst cases; but though these extreme results have taken place, let us hope that, as the disease and its cure become better known, it will rarely again be allowed to proceed so far. For it is one which advances slowly, so that many years would be required in general to bring a man to this state; and its treatment, if judicious, is in most cases very effective; unlike many other, far more intractable, though not so miserable, diseases.

It is one of the most grievous diseases of humanity, but one in which an immensity might be done, which is not done, for its prevention and cure. Would we could say as much for all diseases! When we think of cancer, organic heart disease, &c., of the first of which the causes are almost unknown, while we often see the second produced in a day under our eye in rheumatic fever, to cause years of insupportable anguish-states hard of prevention and incapable of cure-how does the thought of all the miseries that poor humanity is exposed to, awake our pity! Give us but a glimpse into the nature and cause of a disease, and shall we not move heaven and earth to prevent it!

Spermatorrhoea is not likely to cause structural disease in the chief vi tal organs, contrary to what has been thought. Many a patient and physician have been deceived in believing that the functional diseases of the head, heart, stomach, &c.. produced by seminal weakness, proceeded from an organic affection of these parts themselves. Many have consulted M. Lallemand, believing themselves to be labouring under such diseases, or consumptive, in whom the emaciation and weakness proceeded from the far more manageable spermatorrhoea. In particular, very many of that class, to whom the name of hypochondriacs has been given, as an excuse for our ignorance of their malady, and its cure, have been discovered to be affected with this disease, in which hypochondria, or a gloomy state of mind, is perhaps the most constant symp

tom.

In male animals, such as the bull, dog, &c., in whom this disease has been observed, the very same effects, moral and physical, have been found, as in man. The animal became solitary, gloomy, and unwilling to be disturbed; retired from his fellows, and gradually grew weak, emaciated, and at last sank exhausted.

As for the termination of the disease; if left to itself, it has a constant

tendency to increase. The patient may after years of suffering, sink into the lowest stage of weakness, and die. M. Lallemand describes some cases, in which death was caused by a kind of apoplexy, characteristic of this disease, and induced by the exhausted state of the brain. The disease has in many cases proceeded to insanity, and idiocy; in one case, which was cured by treatment, the patient had lost the knowledge of his friends, and the power of speech. From this extreme, there are of course infinite gradations, up to perfect soundness of intellect. M. Lallemand makes many observations, full of interest, on some of the distinguished men of past times, whom he suspects to have been affected by this disease; and as far as we can judge of them by their own description of their symptoms, his suspicions seem well founded. From the description of his illhealth which Rousseau gives in his confessions, and of the sufferings, which brought on his death, having previously reduced him to a state almost of madness, Lallemand judges him to have laboured under spermatorrhoea, which produced many of the extraordinary moral and intellectual effects, depicted by that unfortunate man with such matchless vividness. To the eye of Lord Brougham, Rousseau is a man of rare, but narrow genius, full of vice and crime; while, to the penetrating gaze of the truer philosopher, he is a sad, and infinitely instructive instance of a most noble mind, struggling under the inevitable ruin of a secret bodily disease. I do trust, that this will be the last century, when any one will believe himself qualified to judge of man, a physico-psychical being, while in utter ignorance of his material part, and its workings. Are the laws and diseases of the body a less important part in man's history, than every sophistical idea, proceeding from the countless theoryspinning brains, that have left their webs in the lumber-room of moral and metaphysical speculations?

It

Pascal, he also suspects to have had the disease, and probably so had Sir Isaac Newton, who is said to have lived a life of strict sexual abstinence, which produced before death a total atrophy of the testicles, showing the natural sin which had been committed. It is certain that his matchless intellect declined after middle age, and it is even said, I know not with what truth, that he almost lost his mind late in life. is a disease, whose progress is greatly favoured by study; and as no human brain can withstand it, we may well believe that very many cases of premature mental decay have been owing to it. No man is safe from a greater or less degree of seminal weakness, who does not exercise his genital organs, or reproductive part, as duly as the brain, stomach, or any other organ.

The appearances found after death, in patients labouring under this disease, complete the chain of inductive reasoning. M. Lallemand found in many cases, the ejaculatory canals widened, and their orifices inflamed; the testicles generally much softer than natural, and some other signs showing the diseased state of the genital organs.

I have already described several of the principal causes of the disease, in speaking of the disuse, overuse, and abuse of the genital organs.

M. Lallemand met with several instances of the disease, among Roman Catholic priests, who rigidly adhered to their vows of celibacy, (ore of the